File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Mary (Appleton) Mackintosh, 4 January 1858 (673ac30a-365d-4e0d-a8e8-dd9ba99157d5).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-028#002

Cambridge Jan 4th 1858.
Dear Mary,
Miss Wedgwood returns, by this steamer, and I have sent by her the box I promised. I trust it has safely reached her in N. York, & will be safely conveyed to you. I told her, if she had no person to entrust it to from her house to yours, to send it by Express, and that you would pay all charges, but she seemed confident she should have an opportunity.
I have not heard from her since she left us, except from Mr Huntington who saw her friend Mrs Gorden in N. York, that [p. 2] she went to Niagara for Xmas, tho’ without her.
As we had some cold nights just then, tho’ our wonderfully mild winter continues, I hope she saw it with the grandeur of ice she expected. I shall hear from her, no doubt, before she sails.
Having written you so lately I seem to have very little to say. We have been busy distributing New Year gifts, having so many old servants to look after, & always a box for Portland to despatch. Henry’s brother Alex has three little children now & they must not be forgotten by ‘aunt Fanny.’ We have two nephews too in College & as I always reserve my presents for my own children for N. Year it is quite a busy time.
Erny was dressed up as the [p. 3] old Year with snowy beard & locks & brought them on his back the evening before. I put in your box a package for Mrs Hodgkinson (a daguerreotype of Annie & her baby) which she says her mother will call for so you need have no trouble about it.
Tom has a dinner today for Sir Charles Fox who brought him a letter. His household goes on very smoothly. So has mine this winter, but now comes home Mrs Beck, two years sooner than she intended, (on account of the death of her daughter’s husband) and carries off my cook who had been with her eight years & who therefore prefers to return to her. As she is an excellent woman & cook it is a great loss to me, & one not easily made up.
[p. 4] Harriot I found on Saturday quite concerned because the house next door to them (Mr Dixon’s) has been sold & a speculator has bought it who will probably put up several, in its place, & make a fine confusion there all summer. James Lawrence is moving into his on the opposite corner which has lost all its stateliness by having a low door substituted for the high steps of yore. It is a pity Mr Winthrop could not afford to recover the paternal mansion next papa’s which would be so pleasant to his wife & Harriot.
I found Aunt Sam taking such delight in Annie H’s baby. She has its arm & hand in plaster under glass on her pier table. It came in, arrayed in a fine cloak, its grandmamma sent it, to parade in Beacon St. Its mother looks charmingly now, & is able to go to some parties & display her smart wedding dresses. Louisa Bangs is enjoying herself intensely in Italy with Mrs Sedgwick. With our best N. Year wishes to you, R. & the children ever yr loving Fanny
[p. 1 cross] How could I forget to tell you that Henry received on N. Years day a most beautiful letter from Parthe Nightengale, enclosing a photograph of a most graceful drawing of Florence by herself, another of a lily, a symbol of her, & as one he mentions in his poem (tho’ she designed it while F was in the Crimea) and one of her with the lamp surveying the lines of sick at night. We shall frame them all together. How I was delighted to receive them.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; social life; family life; subject; events; holidays; new year; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1858 (1011/002.001-028); (LONG-FileUnitName)